This invention relates to a drum brake including an emergency brake lever (hereafter hand brake lever) which is riveted for pivotal motion to the web of one of the brake shoes by means of a rivet having a stepped shaft. A spring disc is arranged on the rivet shaft for compensating for the play between the web and the hand brake lever. The rivet shaft portion adjoining the rivet head has the relatively large diameter and serves for the pivotal support of the hand brake lever on the web. The rivet shaft portion of reduced diameter passes through a corresponding bore in the web and is riveted to the web of the brake shoe. The rivet shaft portion of the larger diameter thus abuts firmly the web without undergoing an increase in diameter. To compensate for the unavoidable clearance between the hand brake lever and the web, a wavy spring disc is provided on the rivet shaft between the rivet head and the hand brake lever. The spring disc urges the hand brake lever against the web of the brake shoe.
If, in the above-outlined, generally satisfactory conventional construction the hand brake is not actuated for a longer period of time, the risks are high that the hand brake lever, because of corrosion that has developed on its face engaging the web, can no longer move with ease and thus the return force of the conventional return spring may not be sufficient to pull the hand brake lever back into its position of rest. Further, in the course of the mounting operation, the spring disc has to be inserted on the rivet shaft with particular circumspection in such a manner that its wavy side is oriented towards the hand brake lever, otherwise the desired spring effect cannot be obtained. Therefore, the mounting of the hand brake lever has to be effected with great care. In order to reduce the tendency of corrosion between the hand brake lever and the web of the brake shoe it would be in principle possible to place the wavy spring disc on the inner side of the hand brake lever, that is, between the hand brake lever and the web. In such an arrangement of the spring disc, however, the risks would be high that the spring disc, during riveting, would slip from the rivet shaft portion of greater diameter to the rivet shaft portion of smaller diameter and would jam between the rivet and the web resulting in an inoperativeness of the entire structural unit. This would be so, because the rivet which serves as a bearing shaft, would assume an orientation different from its usual orientation which is perpendicular to the plane of the web. Further, it is not possible to dimension in advance the inner diameter of the wavy spring disc such that the spring disc is supported not on the rivet shaft portion of larger diameter but, from the very beginning, on the rivet shaft portion of the smaller diameter, because then the wavy spring disc would be riveted to the web resulting in a loss of its springing motion.